In a small town in a small house in PA, a Seton student sends in her narrative paper in on the computer to be graded. Far away, in Seton’s grading department, a Grader sits brooding over internet submitted work. It will be a long time until the grading status catches up to Angelina’s paper, so now let us take a moment and study both characters in their rooms.

Above the clutter, above the computer, hangs a gaudy oil painting. Our Lord sits agonized in the garden. Almost the whole rest of the wall is covered in colorful Byzantine icons; she is being watched especially judgingly by the alarmingly stern icon of St. Mary of Egypt. The girl’s room is dark, dirty and cluttered. Angelina sits waiting before the computer. Look closer at the hazy screen-there are countless graded papers bearing her name next to demoralizing C’s and D’s. But the outcome of the narrative paper’s trial will decide her own fate- anything less than an A now will result in an eternal grounding at home. Her friends will all find out what kind of grades she gets then. She bites her pen and waits.

We are now in the grading department. It is dark here too, but seemingly tidy. In April, Christmas holly still adorns the top of the small steel refrigerator near the corner of the room, and a small but gaudy crèche magnet still manages to hang on to the door as well. In the corner another computer sits lit, and before it, a giant Grader. We are safe, it can see nothing but its work. Beside the computer, the printer suddenly starts with a vibrating moan. A precariously placed ceramic statue of the Risen Christ seems to move.

Some time has passed. Here nervously sits Angelina before the uploads page as before. The day is here, the grading status has caught up to her at last! She must face the iron Grader. Wide-eyed, she sits before the screen that will shield her from nothing, refreshing the page over and over and over…

The Grader has reached Angelina’s paper. It almost feels cross after this particularly difficult and boring grading day, but it won’t let its mood affect how justly it grades things. It is still frowning however as it pores over her sentences, maybe only out of gravity or habit. It exits out of the distracting chess game it is losing to the computer. It is reaching a decision now about Angelina’s paper.

Back in PA, Angelina is becoming hysterical. Her glance now rests up above the computer. Those severe and unfeeling eyes on the wall meet hers. All night she remains awake, her mind focused on the uploads page until thoughts about what the coming grade probably is and how her friends must never find out overwhelm her. Though she fights it, she falls asleep. The keyboard prints out an infinity of F’s from her dropped head.

It is morning. You have guessed correctly how the Grader has judged this paper, but the red ink has not done its job as of yet. There is something dark behind the computer. You hardly noticed it before. A dusty Bible lies open. Mary Magdalen’s head is drooped. Our Lord is bent while writing in the sand.

The Grader whips out the computer pen. Indifference makes the great red streaks that scar the white page cruel. The Grader’s justice is carried out, one mark for each of Angelina’s mistakes. It is finished. Yes, the grade is an F. It sighs heavily as it sends the paper back to the Syphan’s computer.

Go back in both rooms and really look around. Can you put the pieces of it all together now and see, they both are sides of the same coin? The two are connected by the fallibility passeddown from Adam. There is a common strain of weakness. This leads to confusion. There is weakness in the towering strength of pride, weakness even in high positions and heights of man’s power. Where then lies the answer?

Now time has stopped. Beyond the limits set by the icon, St. Mary reverently lowers her eyes; out of the Bible, Mary Magdalen straightens hesitantly; her gaze is strained on something far away. An oil painting of Christ in the Garden, a small crèche sticker, a ceramic statue of the Resurrected Christ; somewhat disconnected, the three religious images become abstract but more real than before as they are stripped of their fallible material coatings of ceramic, wood, plastic, paint… ink. They rise up, above and beyond PA and VA to give the answer. He is born a weak child, the strongest King; now in the Garden, He does not lay and rest when He takes on the tremendously heavy guilt of all the sins of the world; He is Risen, having submissively given up His life. Strength is found in the Weakness of humility. They shimmer and waver. The three come together and form One. In this dark mystery, there truly should be an awesome fear. Soon it will be His turn to judge when He comes again, and the judgement will be much more ruthless in its infallibility.

Return to time. A fail is not the end of the story; my story or His story.

In VA, a Grader goes on grading papers.

In PA, a narrative paper written by a Seton student has been graded. The letter grade appearing on the Syphan’s uploads page: A

What happened? The paper was judged by the Grader much more accurately than this. A seemingly cruel sentence was carried out, only in accord with how it was written. See, a finite teenage girl cannot pay an infinite debt of grounded hours and chores sentenced by her parents, though she may have conjured up the debt. My terribly flawed and confusing analogy tied into a significant personal daydreamed event must continue in this way… On the way to her computer, the wretched paper was gloriously transformed.